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Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'New Essays on Human Understanding' and 'Platonism and the Spiritual Life'

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10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 5. Modality from Actuality

12978	A perfect idea of an object shows that the object is possible [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: One mark of a perfect idea is that it shows conclusively that the object is possible.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 2.31)
	A reaction: Subtle but nice. My favourite example would be that the perfect idea of a bonfire on the Moon shows that it is not possible. Essence reveals necessity, as Aristotle and Kit Fine claim. A perfect idea has a single definition.